It was two months after John's acceptance of the position with Pilcher &
Reed. The two partners were in the office together. John happened to be
up-town on business for the firm.
"Well, what do you think of Trott now?" Reed asked, with a significant
smile, referring to some estimates and calculations of John's which he
had just submitted to his partner.
"I think he is a wonder," Pilcher returned. "I was thinking about his
work last night. Do you know that I can see where he has already saved
us several thousands of dollars? He prevents much oversupply of
materials and doesn't let us make our old blunders, which often caused
tearing out and rebuilding. He seems to have an eye for the finished
thing before the work is even started. The architects hate him. They
don't have a soft snap with him. He made me send back Hinkinson's plans
for the Chester Flats--stairways too wide by ten inches, and ten feet
too near the front for the stores on the sides."
"I know," Reed chuckled. "Well, what do you think about his pay? You
know we've hinted at a raise."
Pilcher smiled. "I think he is worth as much to us as he is to any one
else, and, as I like the fellow personally, I want to hold on to him.
You can't hire a brain like his very long for nothing, and if we don't
come across he may be snapped up by some one else. Carter & Langley's
man asked me the other day if we had a contract with him. I lied. I
told him yes, and what I want to do now is to sign up with the fellow
and know where we stand. He is ambitious, and I never saw such a worker
in my life. He often does as much as an ordinary man after the office
closes. He works at home. He told me that he did not care for
amusements, reading, or politics. He has put his little sister in
school, and he warms up when he speaks of the child. Outside of his
work, she seems to be the only thing he is interested in. He is always
quoting something she says or telling amusing things she does. Then he
laughs--he seldom smiles over anything else. He is very deep and
serious. If he were not so young I'd think he had had a sad love-affair.
I think he must have taken the deaths of his parents and the
responsibility of the child very seriously. Well, what do you think?"
"About a contract with him? Yes, I think we ought to come to terms with
him. You say he is the man we need. Why not be liberal with him?"
"I've always thought that gradual progress," Pilcher said, "was good for
young men. You can spoil them easily by letting them know that you can't
do without them. Still, I see your point and agree with you. How about a
two years' contract at fifteen hundred a year?"
"Not enough." Reed shook his younger and more progressive head firmly.
"Make it eighteen for a year, with a bonus of three per cent. on our
entire net profits."
Pilcher winced and pulled his beard, but finally agreed. "You attend to
the details and draw up the contract. I catch your idea of pinning down
his personal interest in the work with the bonus. If we make as much
money next year as this he will do well."
So it was finally arranged, and when John went home on the following
Saturday night, after signing the contract, he was in good spirits. Dora
was at the table with Betty and Minnie when he arrived, and he sat down
with them. They were overflowing with amusement about something that had
happened at school, and John sat watching Dora's animated face with deep
pride and gratification. He was sure she was genuinely happy in her new
environment, and he was beginning to feel that he had made no mistake in
taking her from her old one. She showed by her fine color and increased
weight that she was in splendid health. The new dress which she now wore
and which Mrs. McGwire had selected was most becoming. Her abundant hair
under constant care had grown more tractable and was always well
arranged. Her little hands, once rough and soiled, had grown white,
soft, and pliant. Under Betty McGwire's persistent admonitions she had
left off using many incorrect and uncouth forms of speech, and, on the
whole, deported herself very properly.
Why should John not be proud of her? Indeed, she was all he had in the
world to care for, and he lavished the wealth of his saddened and lonely
soul upon her. He loved to work in his little room at night when she and
Minnie or Betty studied or read in hers, the door between being always
open. Frequently they asked him questions which he could not
answer--questions pertaining to history, geography, and science, and he
found that he himself was learning from the answers which they finally
secured from their books, teachers, and elsewhere. Sometimes he went
with them to free lectures given at night by the public schools. The
only place he refused to go with them was to the church and
Sunday-school, but, as the grave-faced Harold always escorted them to
these places, they did not need him. Sometimes the boy would speak
earnestly to him of the intricate theology he was mastering, but, as
John no longer combated such ideas with young or old, he always smiled
indulgently and let the subject pass.
"What does it matter?" he used to ask himself. "Everybody needs a belief
of some sort, and Harold's faith in snake- and whale-stories is as good
as any other, if it will keep him from stealing and murdering and make
him more considerate of his fellow-man. Let the boy preach. If people
are willing to pay to listen to him, that is their business and his. As
for me, it hit me once and sha'n't get a swipe at me again."
After dinner was over on the night following his promotion, he told the
three little girls that he wanted to "celebrate" that evening and would
take them to a certain theater where a children's play was being
produced.
"To celebrate what?" they noisily asked him, but he kept his joyous
secret to himself, and they hurried away to get ready to go out.
While he was waiting for them in the parlor, Harold came down from his
room, a book under his arm, and John invited him to go along. But the
boy only smiled and held out the book, which was the _Life of Wesley_.
"I have to study this to-night," he said. "I am to be examined on the
pioneers of our Church. You know we do not believe in theaters, as a
rule, but I understand that this child's play has a good moral. I'm sure
it won't do any great harm, and the silly things are up-stairs dancing
with joy."
The children liked the play, the people, the lights, the music, and John
sat feasting on their animated faces. Once, however, a pang of keen pain
shot through him at the thought that he was having a pleasure that
could not be shared with the little toiling woman who had once been his
wife. If all had gone well, he might have brought Tilly to the great
city and lavished the results of his work and ability on her. As it was,
she would perhaps remain in the backwoods for the rest of her life. She
would no doubt marry-- Here he shuddered and tried to banish the thought
from his mind.
After the play he took his little guests to an attractive cafe and they
had some ice-cream and cakes. While they ate they chattered vivaciously
about the plot and characters of the drama. Betty displayed good
critical ability, and John saw from Dora's face that she was seeing her
new friend in a fresh light and no doubt determining to emulate her in
this, as in other things. He told himself that that quality in his
foster-sister would help her enormously in acquiring the social culture
which he himself had missed in his youth.
Little Minnie was becoming sleepy. Her eyelids were drooping, and John
started home with them. For a while he led Minnie by the hand, and then,
noting her lagging steps, he took her into his arms and carried her the
rest of the way. He felt her soft cheek settle down against his, and
from her warm, moist breathing he knew that she was asleep. He liked the
sensation caused by the limp form in his embrace. Betty and Dora walked
by his side. Young as he was, he felt a sort of paternal interest in all
three of them.
Reaching home, he bore the sleeping child up to her little white bed in
her mother's room. Mrs. McGwire was there, hemming sheets for the house,
and was deeply touched by his act.
"It was awfully kind of you," she said, and then she began to cry. "I'm
a fool," she whimpered, wiping her eyes, "but you were carrying her just
as her father did only a week before he died."
However, she dried her eyes quickly and hastened to disrobe Minnie, who
was still asleep.
"You have been a godsend to us all, Mr. Trott," Mrs. McGwire declared.
"The children worship you. Did you know it? Every night they listen for
your coming, and they often go into the kitchen to inquire if you are
getting exactly what you like to eat. I am telling you this because I
like to have children love me, and these love you very deeply."
* * * * *
One day John had to go to the office of a great newspaper directory
where files were kept of almost all the papers in the United States, his
object being to look over the advertised offers for bids on public
buildings in a certain New Jersey town. He was sent into the basement of
the establishment, where he found the files arranged in compartments in
shelves on both sides of a long room. An attendant handed him a
catalogue of the papers with the numbered key to their locations, and he
soon secured the information he desired. He was about to leave when a
terrible thought took hold of him, and he ran his eye over the
catalogue. Yes, there it was. _The Cranston News_. He went to the
indicated compartment himself, took down the file it contained, and bore
it to the table and seat set aside for patrons. It was a tiny,
half-stereotyped weekly, and on that account its compartment held a
longer file than otherwise would have been the case. He put the stack of
papers on the table before him. Should he look for the thing the mere
thought of which seemed to deaden his brain? He knew the time that the
item would naturally appear, and with cold, fumbling fingers he drew
out the issue under that date. He held it a moment unopened.
"What good would it do?" something seemed to admonish him. "Don't rasp a
healing wound."
The attendant noticed his apparent indecision and approached politely.
"Is there something else you want to see?" he asked.
"No, thanks; these are all," John answered, and he opened the paper. The
clerk left him and he allowed his glance to sweep the columns of local
happenings.
It was there. The mere head-line in bold type was sufficient: "Annulment
of Young Bride's Marriage and Tragic End of Husband."
John read the crudely considerate item through, folded the sheet, and
restored the file to its place. Then he started back to his office. How
pitiless seemed the street scene in the garish light of the midday sun!
The push-cart men, the newsboys, the hurrying throng, the rattling of
the overhead trains, seemed to belong to an earthly hades. And why, he
wondered, should he suffer so over a thing that he had already accepted
as a fact, and partly conquered? He couldn't have answered, though a
psychologist might have classed it under the head of autosuggestion, or
called it a mere backward twist of a morbid imagination fed by
unsubdued, subconscious longings for things the subject once possessed.
That night strange, dazzling dreams fell to John's portion. If by his
hard work he was enabled through the day to keep his old life out of his
conscious thought to any extent, it was often otherwise when he slept,
and to-night, following the shock he had had that morning, he was living
only too vividly over the period in which he had known Tilly. Again he
was entranced by her illumined face and thrilled by her mellow treble
voice as she read from the Bible that first night of his acquaintance
with her. Again he and she were on the lonely, moonlit mountain road
together. He felt her loving pressure on his arm, and as by the light of
heaven caught her tender, upward glance. Then she became his
wife--actually his wife. They were on the train together--in the cab at
Ridgeville, and then in that cottage of dreams and delight, shut in from
the uncomprehending world without.
Then he awoke and, like the hail of javelins from an omnipotent enemy,
the tragic facts of his existence hurtled down upon him. Smothering a
cry like that of a wounded beast in a jungle, he found his pillow wet
with tears which he had shed against his will or knowledge--tears of
joy, or tears of grief, which were they? He sprang from his bed and
stood before the window of his boxlike room.
"It is my yellow streak again," he muttered, wiping his eyes and
grinding his teeth. "It can't down me awake, and so it coils about me in
dreams. Be a man, John Trott! Life was never made for happiness. It was
for pain, struggle, and conquest."
He heard a sound in Dora's room. He wondered if anything was wrong, and
as an anxious mother might have done, he listened attentively. He heard
a low, rippling laugh, followed by prattling tones. The child was
talking in her sleep. Her dreams must have been pleasant, for her
lilting voice rang out again.
"It is beautiful on you, Betty! Maybe brother John will get me one, too.
Then we can wear them to the church sociable, eh, Betty?"
"Brother John!" he echoed, softly. It was sweet and vaguely comforting
to know that the little waif relied upon him even in her dreams. He
crept into her room on his tiptoes, bent over Dora, and looked at her.
What an angelic, spritelike creature she seemed in her white gown and
golden hair! How delicate and refined her features and tapering hands!
In the half-light he saw that she was smiling. Smiling! She had never
smiled like that in the old house at Ridgeville. She had begun to smile
and laugh and jest under his love and care, and he told himself that it
should always be so.
He went back to his bed, turned his damp pillow over, and laid his head
on a dry spot. As he lay trying to sleep, the visions of his dream began
to hover over him, and, wincing and writhing with pain, he cried:
"Be a man, John Trott! It is your yellow streak again. Kill it now, or
it will down you in the end!"
PART II
CHAPTER I
Ten eventful years of toil and struggle for John Trott went by. True to
the prophecy of Cavanaugh and other practical men, he succeeded. Step by
step he rose till, on the death of Mr. Pilcher, he became an equal
partner with Reed in the business. He and Dora still lived with the
McGwires in the old house, which was now kept for roomers only. John
could have well afforded to give Dora a more expensive home, but both he
and she had become inseparably attached to these first friends of theirs
in New York.
Dora, a tall, slender girl of nineteen, while not exactly pretty, was
quite attractive. John had sent her to a select school for young ladies,
and the polish and education she had received had not spoiled her. She
was not ashamed of the fact that she and John had once been what they
were. In fact, the McGwires knew all the circumstances connected with
their clandestine flight from the South, and guarded well their secret.
Not once, even indirectly, had either John or Dora heard from their
former home. Dora had almost entirely forgotten it, and, while John
could not possibly do so, it had become like a dream of blended joy and
pain which he persistently put aside. But at times a grim certitude
fixed itself on him, that, having once loved, he could never love again.
He never met a marriageable woman, no matter how attractive or willing
she might be to receive his attentions, without feeling the presence of
a certain barrier of contrast to an ideal embedded in his tragic past.
There was a vast store of love and tenderness in him, and this he poured
out on his foster-sister. He was a natural man and yielded to sensual
temptations, but always with the after-result of feeling vaguely soiled
and lowered, and was in continual strife with his passions. To-day they
were conquered, to-morrow they held temporary sway. And there was a
rebuke, always a rebuke which no reasoning could set aside--a rebuke
rising out of the mystic sanctity of the short union between him and his
bride. "Tilly!" The very name crept upon him unawares as from the
exquisite mental pictures he was always trying to suppress. "Tilly!" He
caught himself applying it to Dora, a slip of the tongue, which, better
than anything else, revealed to him the psychic bonds between him and a
personality lost to him forever. Once Dora asked him if he thought, by
any chance, that Tilly might have died. He started, reflected for a
moment, and then answered in a way that was a surprise even to himself.
"No, she's living," he said. "If she were dead I'd feel it."
"That is no criterion to go by," answered Dora, who had become quite
religious and was now a member of the Methodist Church. "Do you know
what Harold would say about that?"
"Harold might say a lot of absurd things about it"--John smiled
indulgently--"but he is no criterion, either."
"Well, I'll tell you what he'd say, and it is my opinion, too," the girl
went on. "He'd say that the very intuitive feeling you say you
have--your firm confidence of her existence, is due to the fact that she
has passed from this plane of life, is now on another, and that she is
always with you in spirit because she loved you once, still loves you,
and wants to protect you. Don't you see how pretty that is, brother
John? She has become, as Harold would say, your guardian angel, your
very conscience. When you are tempted to do wrong she restrains you; and
when you actually do something wrong she has a way of rebuking you
through your intuition."
This argument displeased John, as all such theories did. He claimed,
with many of his rather materialistic friends, that to believe in a
blissful life to come only rendered one less useful in the present, and
was a strong proof of innate selfishness in the individual who was
seeking it for himself alone.
But he let Dora have her way, and why shouldn't he? Indeed, he was
almost sure that she and Harold were falling in love with each other.
Harold was preaching now in a small church on the west side of the city,
and his mother and sisters and Dora were diligent helpers in many ways.
"I'm becoming sure," Mrs. McGwire said, with a smile, one day to John as
they lingered at the breakfast-table after Betty and Dora had left,
"that Dora and Harold are very much in love, and I'm glad of it. A
minister ought to marry early, and your sister, of all girls, is the one
I'd want for him."
"So it is like that, is it?" John said, resignedly. "Well, I have no
objections, I'm sure. I want her to be happy."
CHAPTER II
One evening, shortly after that, Harold came into John's room, saying
that he wanted to speak to him in private. He was slightly above medium
height, quite thin, and attenuated-looking. He wore the black
frock-coat, high, stiff collar, and black necktie of his calling. For a
man of less than twenty-four years of age he certainly was grave and
serious-looking. He was endeavoring to produce a show of whiskers on his
cheeks and chin, but the effort was almost in vain, for the hairs grew
sparsely and were of a color between yellow and light brown that did not
make for density of appearance. However, he was earnest and sincere, and
John liked and trusted him.
"I've been wanting to see you for some time, Mr. Trott," he began,
taking a chair that was vacant near John's and linking his white hands
between his knees. "I don't know what you will think of me, but I've had
the audacity to fall in love with your sister, and, as I look upon you
as her guardian and protector, I felt honor-bound to come to you."
"I see, I see." John had flushed with embarrassment. "Well, the truth
is, Harold, I have been suspecting something of this sort lately, and I
can imagine what you want to say."
Harold had never been one to give in to embarrassment. Life was too
serious and needed too many corrections to justify him in losing time or
emotion in that way, so without change of color, or quickened pulse, he
went on. "I have reason to believe, Mr. Trott, that Dora reciprocates my
feeling, and you may be sure that it has given me great happiness. She
is wrapped up in my work, and I know of no woman who would so readily
adapt herself to the routine of a minister's career. The only thing
bothering us both has been--"
For the first time Harold hesitated.
"Go ahead," said John, awkwardly, and quite unaware of what was
forthcoming.
"You see, I know what she has been to you all these years," Harold
resumed, "and we both know, too, what your religious, or lack of
religious, views are, and it has pained me to think that perhaps you
would prefer as Dora's husband a man of--well, a man whose views were
more in accord with your own than mine can ever possibly be."
Not knowing what to say, John hung fire. He had always been outspoken
where his views were directly challenged, and, despite the delicacy of
the present crisis, he had nothing to take back. All things being equal,
he really would have preferred to have his protegee marry, if she
married at all, a man whose calling he could be proud of. He had
ridiculed parsons as the most parasitical of all men, and yet here he
was about to hand over to one of them the only human treasure he
possessed.
"I see you understand me," Harold half sighed, "and I am not so full of
religious zeal as not to sympathize with you. I don't see how a man can
live without more faith than you have, but I admire your firmness of
conviction in what you think is right. You may call yourself an atheist,
Mr. Trott, but you really are not one. A great man has said that there
are no atheists--that every man who does good, defends goodness, and
contends against evil of any sort has as good a god as any one. I don't
agree with him fully, but I know that what you did for Dora, full of
despair as you were at the time, proves that you had divinity in you.
That act was godlike and had to have a source outside of mere animal
instinct."
John was touched. He held out his hand. "Let all that pass, Harold," he
smiled. "I am sure that Dora loves you, and I want to make her happy.
You are her choice. You have a right to her."
"I thank you," Harold responded, with his first touch of emotion. There
was silence for a moment, then Harold said: "There is yet another
matter, Mr. Trott, and both Dora and I are worried over it. It belongs
to a little secret of ours. We have not even told my mother yet, and we
dread doing so. Mr. Trott, I have just received an appointment to a
desirable post among the missionaries in China."
"China!" John repeated, his honest mouth drooping, his eyes taking on a
dull fixity of gaze.
Harold shrugged and nodded. "I thought that would pain you, and so did
Dora, but there is nothing else to do but to tell you about it frankly.
The heads of the work prefer men with wives, and Dora has her heart set
on aiding me in the Orient."
The smoldering embers of John's antagonism under its threatened blight
flared up. His blood flowed hotly to his brain. He knew that the
separation would be for years if not for all time, and how could he be
expected to submit calmly to such a heartless course? Could Dora find it
in her gentle nature to desert him like that after all they had been to
each other?
"I see that you are hurt," Harold sighed, softly, "and I am more than
sorry, Mr. Trott."
John's anger was dying down; a cool breath of sheer despair and
resignation seemed to blow over him. How could he live on alone? he
wondered, and yet the thing proposed was the logical outcome of many
natural circumstances and had to be borne.
"I believe," John answered, "that the missionaries, once they leave, do
not return to America frequently?"
"No, they are all poor people, Mr. Trott, and the money saved from such
costly traveling expenses can be well used in other ways."
"We'll let that pass," John said, "and come to something else. I have
put by a little money to be given or left to Dora, and--"
But raising his hand, and flushing freely now, Harold checked him.
"Don't speak of that, Mr. Trott, please!" he urged. "Dora mentioned
something of the sort to me. She said you had thrown out some hint of it
recently, and she and I talked it over. We both decided that we'd rather
not let you do anything of the sort. You are a young man yourself, and
have already done a thousand times more than your duty to Dora. Indeed,
we'd both feel very unhappy if you carried out such a plan. You laugh at
men of my calling and say they are grafters, but it is really not as you
think. Most of the missionaries I've met are poor men, and they are
willing to remain so. It would be an absurdity for Dora and me to accept
help from you, when our organization is pledged to see that
superannuated ministers and their wives are cared for as long as they
live."
John was about to speak, vaguely pleased by the manliness of Harold's
words, when Dora suddenly came in. Her face was flushed, but her eyes
were steady. She stood by Harold's side, who had risen, and smiled half
fearfully at John.
"Well, have you told him?" she asked Harold.
He nodded, and put his arm around her waist.
"I mean, have you told him about China?" she went on, anxiously.
"Yes"--with a smile--"and that we simply will not let him give us any of
his hard-earned money."
"No, indeed, brother John," Dora cried. "Not a penny of your money will
I take after all you have done for me. You must get married--you must be
sensible and find you a good wife. You will need all the money you have,
too. It is bad enough--my leaving you like this--without taking your
savings. We simply won't hear to it, will we, Harold?"
"No," the other answered, firmly. "We'd be acting a lie if we teach
others that poverty and humility are a blessing while having a nest-egg
of our own."
"Now hear from me." Dora tried to speak with amusing lightness. "While
you were here, Harold, exploding your bomb, I've been telling your
mother. She is down in her room, crying her heart out. She takes it very
hard. It has been the pride of her life that you are a minister, but she
never dreamed that she'd miss hearing you preach every Sunday of her
life, and help you with your work besides. That's the mother of it, and
this is really the hardest blow she's ever had."
There was a sound of a dog barking down-stairs. It was John's pet
fox-terrier, Binks.
"He is after a rat," Dora said, forcing a smile to her set face and
somehow not wanting to meet the eyes of the stricken man.
"Yes"--John rose--"it is time for me to take him out. He stays in too
much." John knew that he was expected to say more on the other subject,
but all at once his tongue had become tied. An indescribable despair
incased him like walls of sinister darkness. The young couple seemed to
feel his mood and to be baffled by it, standing in the presence of his
disappointment as if conscious of actual guilt in causing it. Neither
said anything, and John got his hat and descended to his dog.
They heard him whistling to Binks as if nothing unusual had happened.
They heard the yelping animal scampering up the basement steps to meet
him. Creeping wordless, and hand in hand, to the stairs, they saw John
bend down and take the dog in his arms. Binks was licking the side of
his face, and John seemed unconscious of it. The mute watchers heard the
front door close after him. Dora turned back into John's room. She was
wiping her eyes. Harold took her into his arms.
"Don't, don't, dear!" he said, tenderly. "It can't be helped, you know.
He will suffer--another will suffer, but it has to be. We all bear a
cross of some sort or other."
"I know it," she continued to sob, "but it is terrible. Harold, I have
never seen such a look on his face as was on it when I came in the room
just now. He looked as if he had lost every hope in life. I didn't think
I'd ever wound him like this. I used to tell him that he and I would be
near together always--if he married or if I married. You see, I know he
counted on it, for he mentioned it frequently. Wasn't that
pitiful--taking Binks up that way? I could almost hear him sob."
"You are too sentimental, dear," Harold answered, trying to disguise his
own emotion, which perhaps Dora's melting mood had elicited. "You
soft-hearted women are always attributing your own feelings to men.
He'll soon get over it. Besides, a man as young as he is ought not to
become a confirmed old bachelor, and this very separation may drive him
into a happiness as normal as yours and mine is going to be."
"I hope so--oh, I hope so!" Dora whimpered, still wiping her eyes. "If
he should remain unhappy here I am afraid I'd not be wholly content away
from him."
"He'll marry, don't worry," Harold said, kissing her again. "He's bound
to do so. He is too fine a man to pass his life in loneliness."
CHAPTER III
The wedding, one bright morning in June, was a most simple one and took
place in the little church that Harold was leaving. The rites were
performed by the Rev. Arthur Kirkwood, the young minister who was
succeeding him. Harold was popular with his congregation, and the church
was fairly well filled with sympathetic friends, none of whom were known
to John. Indeed, he was a dreary alien in a weirdly convivial
assemblage, the smug elation of which irritated him. Mrs. McGwire,
Betty, and Minnie were all so busy shaking hands with people they knew
that John was really ignored. He wanted it so, and yet he keenly felt
the line of demarcation between the element in which he lived and that
which had engulfed Dora and was sweeping her out of his ken forever. He
sat alone in the second row of seats, only a few feet from the pulpit
and a table laden with flowers. A few young people in the choir overhead
were laughing gaily. The faces all over the room were beaming
expectantly, and some of the most impatient persons asked when the bride
and groom would arrive.
"At ten o'clock, sharp," Mrs. McGwire said, aloud, so that all could
hear. "They are coming in a carriage, and expect to be driven straight
to the train from here."
The time dragged slowly for John. He saw a few persons eying him with
mild interest as the brother of the bride, but most of the others were
occupied in exchanging jests or greetings with this or that acquaintance
as their heads met over the backs of the seats. To while away the time,
and for the sheer love of it, a man who was a sort of leader in church
singing suddenly began to sing a well-known revival hymn, and the others
joined in lustily. John detested it. He had heard it during his isolated
childhood at Ridgeville, later at Cranston, and here it was a strident
requiem over the bier of his last hope. He was inclined to
self-analysis, and he wondered if any of the audience could imagine the
dark and rebellious state of mind that he was in. He was not jealous of
Harold, he did not begrudge Dora's happiness or desire to curb the
festive mood of the people around him. He was simply in despair and
could see no way of escape. He tried to think of going back to the
office the next day and plunging into work, but how could he do so
without some aim in life? Dora had refused financial aid from him. Of
what account were his past earnings or those of the future?
The singing was brought to an abrupt end. Mrs. McGwire, who had
stationed herself at the street door, suddenly cried out, "They are
coming!" and a fluttering silence brooded on the room.
Dora and Harold, accompanied by Mr. Kirkwood, entered the adjoining
Sunday-school room from the street with the playful intent to deceive
the audience, who were watching the front, and the McGwires all hastened
through a doorway near the pulpit to greet them. Betty, a tall,
dignified young lady in a becoming street dress, ran across to John.
"Will you come speak to them now, or afterward?" she asked, smiling.
"Afterward," he answered, flushing under the composite stare of the
whole room and irritated by being made so conspicuous.
"But you won't have a very good chance then," she advanced. "You know
there will be an awful rush at the carriage. You'd better come now."
He complied. He found Dora and Harold in the arms of Minnie and her
mother. Both of the latter were weeping.
"I'd cry, too," Dora said, smiling sadly up at John, "but it would leave
streaks of wet powder on my face. I am to be a pale and interesting
bride. I'm sorry to leave you, brother John."
"Never mind, Sis," he said, bravely. "Everything goes in this life." She
leaned toward him, and he kissed her. He was still a crude man and
shrank from caressing even Dora in the presence of others.
"We'll meet again," she said, confidently; "don't let yourself believe
otherwise."
"All right, I won't." He forced himself to smile.
"Ten o'clock!" cried out Mr. Kirkwood, who was ready at the door. "You
mustn't miss that train. I'm going in to take my place. Come right in,
Brother McGwire."
"Then this must be good-by, darling John," Dora whispered. "I know you
won't want to push through the crowd to us afterward."
"Good-by--good-by," he said, and then he shook hands with Harold.
"Good-by, Harold," he said. "I'm leaving her with you."
"I'll do my best, Mr. Trott," Harold said, feelingly. "She is a treasure
and I am robbing you. God knows I wish it could be without pain to you."
"Nevermind; that is all right," John answered.
Mrs. McGwire and Minnie, a plain, rather gawky girl, went to the first
row of seats in the church, sat down, smiled knowingly at some friends
in the rear, and John and Betty followed. Some one at the organ played
a wedding march, and Harold and Dora came in and stood before the
waiting preacher.
It was soon over. The organ groaned mellowly, and Harold led Dora down
the aisle to the vestibule. The congregation followed like stampeding
cattle. John was left alone, the McGwires having hurried out through the
Sunday-school room to get a last sight of the pair as they entered the
carriage.
John met Mrs. McGwire outside as the carriage was disappearing down the
street. She said she and her daughters were going to stay awhile to
attend to the flowers and some other gifts, and he went home alone. The
massive door was locked, and, opening it with a pass-key, he entered the
hall. He heard Binks barking in the back yard and he went down to him.
"They didn't want you there, did they, Binks?" he said, taking the dog
in his arms. "You'd have made a row, wouldn't you? Well, she is gone,
old boy--you don't realize it now, but you will later, when you miss the
feeds and nice baths she gave you. She used to buy choice morsels for
you. I know, for I've seen the bones lying around."
The remainder of that day he spent in sheer torment, strolling about in
the parks with Binks, and when he returned home he found Betty and
Minnie alone in the parlor. Their eyes were red from weeping.
"It is on account of the way mother is taking it," Betty explained.
"She's gone to bed with a headache. The excitement of the wedding kept
her up, but she has gone to pieces since they left. Really, Harold was
all she had in the world. Min and I didn't count."
John could think of nothing to say, and he went on to his room. There
were some blue-prints and calculations awaiting his attention on the
big desklike table in his room, and he took them up to look them over,
but laid them down again.
"What is the use?" he muttered. "My God! what is the use of _anything_?
Money? What do I care for money? What could I do with it if I had
millions?"
That night when he was about to go to bed he looked into Dora's room.
She had left it in perfect order, but somehow it seemed as barren as a
room for transient guests in a hotel.
"Dear, dear Sis," he said, with a lump in his throat. "When you and I
used to get up before day in that old ramshackle home--you in your rags,
and I in my overalls--we didn't dream that all those things would happen
and draw to an end like this. There is nothing for me to look forward
to--nothing, absolutely nothing, but you will find peace, contentment,
and happiness. Well, that is enough. It was worth it, Sis. I'm out of
it, and it is only my yellow streak that is whining."
The room, in its tomblike silence and inanimate reminders, oppressed him
sorely, and, closing the door that he might not, even by accident,
glance into it again that night, he started to undress for bed, when
Binks began loudly barking down-stairs. Then he heard Betty trying to
quiet him.
"What is the matter with him?" John called down from the head of the
stairs.
"I think he wants you," Betty laughed. "I can't pacify him. He keeps
jumping up and down, pawing the floor, and crying like a baby."
"Unfasten him, please, and let him come up," John answered.
Immediately there was a swishing, thumping sound on the stairs and
Binks rushed into John's room and began to lick his hands and whine.
Although he was ready for bed, John sat down in a big chair, took the
dog into his arms, and fondled him like an infant. Binks seemed to
understand, for he became restful at once. John was not conscious of it,
but he sat with the animal in his lap for nearly an hour. Suddenly he
became aware that it was late, and he put on his bath-robe and slippers,
with the intention of taking the dog down to his kennel, but Binks, as
if reading his mind, ran under the bed and remained out of sight.
Stooping down, John saw a pair of small eyes gleaming in the shadow.
"Poor little devil, he's lonely, too!" John muttered. "Say, Binks, come
out--let's talk it over. You want to sleep with me to-night, eh? All
right, we'll keep each other company."
It was as if the little animal understood, for he came out readily,
wagging his stubby tail, and began to stand on his hind feet and lick
his master's hands. "All right, all right." John took him up in his
arms, bore him to his bed, and placed him on the side next to the wall.
And, as if fearful that John might change his mind, Binks snuggled down
between the sheets, his snout on his paws, his eyes blinking almost with
pretended drowsiness.
"Sly old boy!" John laughed, softly, and, throwing off his robe and
slippers, he closed his door and lay down by the dog. His strong arm
touched the sleek coat of his pet and somehow the contact soothed him.
With a tightness of the throat, his eyes suffused with restrained tears,
he told himself that absolutely all had not been taken from him, for
Binks was left.
CHAPTER IV
Another year passed. As he had feared it would be, John's life was all
but aimless and becoming even monotonous. What mattered it whether he
and Reed had one or two contracts more or less in the year? Neither of
them really was in need of the profits earned, and the business
continued to come as fast as they cared to attend to it. John liked best
the outside work, for then he took Binks along with him, and sometimes
in bad weather he even brought the dog to the office, where Binks would
lie quietly under his desk till called out by his master for lunch or a
short stroll in the quieter streets.
"You are too much attached to him," Reed said to him. "I have a friend
who used to have a pet like that. Some devilish person poisoned it one
night, and my friend never could get over it. He told me that if it had
been his only child it wouldn't have hurt him any more."
John shuddered and frowned darkly. "I know how he felt," he answered,
simply, and turned away.
* * * * *
One morning, when John had the office entirely to himself and was going
over some intricate plans and estimates, his stenographer came to him.
"There is an old man at the door who wants to see you," she announced.
"He refused to give his name or state his business."
"Well, tell him, then, that I won't see him," John ordered,
impatiently.
The girl left and came back. "He wouldn't give his name," she said, "but
he said to tell you that he was an old friend and was very anxious to
see you--that he hasn't seen you for about eleven years."
"Eleven years--an old friend!" John said to himself, aghast. "Who could
it be, unless--" The girl was waiting, and he said, "Tell him to come
in, please."
The girl went out and ushered in a gray-haired, gray-bearded old man who
walked with a cane and was so bent downward that, under a broad-brimmed
straw hat, John did not at once see his features. The stenographer
retired to her workroom in the rear, and the visitor came to John.
It was Cavanaugh, who now removed his hat and exposed his face to view,
a face gashed with deep lines, and fairly shrinking under a sort of awed
timidity.
"I'm afraid I'm not welcome, John," he faltered, his wrinkled brow
mantled with red, his old, fat hand checked in its impulsive movement
forward and falling at his side. "I ought not to have come like this,
but I couldn't help it. I was in the city, and wanted to see you for a
lot of reasons."
"That's all right, Sam," John answered, extending his hand and trying to
divest himself of the visible effects of the shock he had received. "How
did you find me? Sit down."
Cavanaugh took the proffered chair. John pitied him, for his hands
crossed on the top of his cane quivered with intense excitement, and his
eyes swept the room with the slow awe of a beggar in the house of a
prince.
"Mostly by accident," he answered, "and putting two and two together,
and reasoning it out like a one-horse detective on his first job. John,
I know I've done wrong, but--"
"Forget all that, Sam," John said, more at ease. "Don't think I've
forgotten you. You are the one friend in the world that I really cared
for down there, and it was my intention to get at you sooner or later. I
thought, however, that I was considered dead to you and everybody at
Ridgeville."
"You are--you _still_ are," Cavanaugh said. "It is like this, John, and
in a way your secret is still safe, for I won't give it away. You
remember Todd Williams. He is in the firm of Williams & Chelton. They
set up in dry-goods after you left. Well, last fall he was on here
buying goods, and when he came back home one day after meeting--we
belong to the same church--he called me off to one side like, and said,
said he:
"'Sam, an odd thing happened to me on the Elevated train while I was in
New York,' and with that he went on to say that while he sat reading his
paper a feller got in and sat in front of him that was the exact image
of you. He said the likeness was so great that he came in an inch of
speaking to the feller, but, remembering the news of your death, he let
it pass. Then he asked me if I thought there could have been any mistake
made about you and Dora being in that wreck. I told him I thought not,
and left him, but I'm here to confess, John, that from that minute my
mind wasn't fully at rest. Hundreds of times I rolled it over and over
in my thoughts--at night in bed, at work, in meeting, at meals with my
wife--everywhere. Always, always I was wondering if you might be still
alive, fighting your fight and making good away off som'ers. I told my
wife how I was worried and she made light of it--said she herself often
saw resemblances to folks in new faces. Then I guess I would have
dropped it, but for one little, tiny thing that popped into my head one
night while I was listening to a long-winded prayer during a revival.
Well, sir, like a flash of blasting-powder this thought came to me. You
left our town in the dead of night, and it was reasonable to suppose
that you did everything you could to keep folks from knowing who you was
and where you was bound for. Didn't you?"
"Yes," John nodded, and sat waiting.
"I thought so," Cavanaugh continued. "So you see, when the list of the
lost was printed, and your name and Dora's, and your age and hers, and
the town you was from, was given, the question come to me, who was it
that reported them things so accurate after that awful disaster? You
wouldn't have been handing your name and the child's about amongst
strangers on the train before the accident, and if your bodies was
burned up, all your belongings, papers, and the like would have been
destroyed, and-- Well, you see what I mean?"
John started and stared steadily. "I see it now, Sam, but I never
thought of it before. I suppose everybody else overlooked that point but
you."
"Yes, I'm the only one," Cavanaugh answered. "Well, John, after that,
instead of being dead to me, somehow you got alive again. I don't want
to talk like a sniffling old woman, John, for you are older now, but I
loved you like a son, and the hope that you was alive and doing well up
here made me powerful happy. You see, until your trouble come like a
clap of thunder, I was almost living for you and your interests. I
wanted us to establish a business between us that you could carry on
after me and my old lady was gone, so, when I began to tote about the
idea of you not being dead, I could think of nothing else, till--well,
till I come here and found your name in the directory. You were the only
John Trott in it, and was a contractor, and I knew I'd run you to your
hole."
"I'm glad you did, Sam," John answered. "I've always wanted to see you
again, but didn't know how to bring it about with absolute safety to my
plans. I'd cut out the whole thing down there, and it seemed best to
forget it--best for me and for Dora. She was so young when she was down
there that she has almost forgotten the worst features of
it--about--about her aunt and other things, I mean."
"I was going to inquire about her," Cavanaugh said. "Is she well and all
right?"
John explained briefly, and heard his old friend sighing. "And so you
are all alone now, not married--no one with you at all."
John nodded. "Oh, I'm all right. I'm 'neither sugar nor salt,'" he
quoted an old saying. "Don't worry about me, Sam. I'll get along some
way or other."
There was silence between the two for a few minutes. It was as if the
old man were wondering what further information he might be at liberty
to give pertaining to the past. Presently he cleared his throat and
said:
"Your ma is still alive, John. Jane Holder is dead. Lots and lots of
things that you don't know about have happened down home since you left.
As soon as Jane Holder died your ma quit living in that old house. She
pulled up stakes and drifted about some. She stayed awhile in Atlanta,
then in Nashville, and finally came back to our town and moved out in
the country. She was--was befriended--a nice woman and her husband sort
of--well, I suppose they sort of took pity on her, and--"
"Stop, Sam!" John's face was dark and twisted from inner agony. "Please
don't mention her. For Dora's sake I've been trying to think of her as
never having actually existed. I don't blame her, you understand. She is
living her life and I'm living mine. I don't blame people for their
natures or characteristics. Such things come at birth. My father was one
thing--she was another. But I've fought down my past, torn it out like
an unwholesome dream. I may be mistaken, Sam, but it seems to me that I
ought not to talk about all that now. I've fought to acquire a new life,
and to some extent I have won it. What lies before me I don't know, and
I don't greatly care. I'm still young in years and strong of body and
mind, but I feel actually old. I suppose you have some sort of faith
still. I have none at all. Dora has it, and it has made her contented,
happy, and useful. I am glad she has it. I wouldn't take it from her.
Tilly--Tilly used to--"
The name was spoken impulsively, as if some subconscious force or habit
had assumed control over a tongue well bridled till now, and with tight
lips John suddenly checked himself and sat flushing under the old man's
kindly stare.
"I was going to mention her," Cavanaugh put in, his honest eyes falling
to the floor, "but didn't know exactly how you'd feel about it. Oh yes,
I still believe in a great Supreme Power that works for eternal good.
Shall I tell you about Tilly?"
John was silent. His face had grown rigid and even pale. His lips
quivered. "I think I know two things about her," he finally said.
"Somehow I feel sure that she is alive and married to Joel Eperson."
Cavanaugh nodded slowly. "Yes, my boy; she finally took him, but it was
not till four years after the report of your death. I see her and Joel
off and on from time to time. It will do no good to open old wounds
now, but I'll say this, John, and that is that your wife's constancy to
your memory, and Joel's faithfulness to her through all her trouble--the
death of her ma and pa, and--and some other things--has given the lie to
every statement ever made that men and women don't actually love each
other. If Tilly had had the slightest hope that you were living she'd
have remained single till the end of time. She never considered that
court edict as right. Oh, I wish I could--could tell you all I know on
that line, but it would do no good now."
"No, we'd better drop it," John said, heavily. "It will do no good to go
over it. I've regarded it as a dead issue for eleven years."
"That may be," Cavanaugh said to himself, "but he is stunned, actually
stunned. I see it in his face and hear it in his voice. Poor boy! Poor
boy!"
"Before dropping the subject I will tell you one thing more," the old
man said, aloud, "and that is that they have two children, a boy of
about six and a little girl of four or five. They are sweet little tots
and are a great comfort. They are images of their mother, and I love
'em."
"Tell me this--tell me this, Sam," John said, and it was as if a great
anxiety rested on him. "I want to know this. Of course, you'll see that
it is no affair of mine, but I'd like to know if Eperson is providing
well for Til--for his wife and children. Sam, she has suffered a lot
through no fault of her own, and most of that suffering came through
happening to meet me up there at Cranston and that silly boy-and-girl
fancy of--of hers and mine. She deserves an easier time from now on, and
that is why I'd like to know how she and Eperson are financially
situated."
Cavanaugh drew his scraggy brows together. His color deepened to red in
his cheeks. "I wish I could make a good report on that line," he
answered, awkwardly, "but I can't give you the best of news. Joel is not
to blame, though. I'll say that. He simply belongs to the class of men
that come, as he did, from landholders and slave-holders. Such men are
highly honorable, but they simply don't know how to make ends meet."
"Then they are poor, very poor?" John said, grimly.
"Yes, very poor," was the reluctant answer. "I'm not blaming Joel. He
has done the best he could. I've never seen a man work harder. If he had
been stingy and grasping he'd have made better headway, but he is always
doing for others. Old Whaley died insolvent, and Joel took care of the
widow and paid out big doctor's bills trying to save her life, through a
long sick spell, and when she passed away he paid all the funeral
expenses and put up a nice stone over the two graves. He doesn't own any
land of his own, but rents a few acres here and there from year to year.
He has to buy his supplies on credit at a high rate of profit, and is
always up to his eyes in debt. Huh! John, you fellers that can work in a
fine office like this, wear clothes like you've got on, and ride home in
a comfortable car, reading your paper or smoking--I say, such as you
have little notion what an easy berth you have compared to fellers like
Joel Eperson. That is the sort of a thing that shakes my faith in the
Almighty a little mite sometimes, but I don't let it get hold of me. In
any case, Joel is blessed by having the wife he got. She is the most
patient little mother that ever lived. I've never heard her complain. I
did hear her say once, though, when I happened to pass along where she
was at work in the cotton-field and stopped to chat a minute--she told
me that she didn't ever worry about what would happen to her and Joel,
because they could die and be done with it, but she did trouble about
the children. She is so anxious for them to grow up and get an education
and be useful in life, and she doesn't see much hope of it."
"You say she actually works in the field?" John exclaimed, with a
shudder and a darkening face.
"Not always, but sometimes when Joel is away or sick, or when the crops
are suffering for immediate attention. You know labor is high and cash
is generally paid, and Joel hasn't the means to hire help at the time he
needs it the most. Take cotton-picking, for instance. If the staple
isn't taken from the boll in time the weather stains and ruins it. It is
at a time like that that Tilly helps. But don't let it fret you. She
told me, with that sweet smile of hers that I used to love so much when
me and you was boarding with her folks, that outdoor work was good for
her. But Joel objects to it. I saw him come out in the corn one day and
take the hoe away from her and send her in the house. I never saw a
sadder look on a proud man's face.
"'She _will_ do it,' he said to me, almost groaning, as he spoke. Joel
got confidential that day. He talked free-like, as men do when they
reach the very bottom of ill luck. 'I thought,' said he, 'that I was
doing right in marrying Tilly, for she was all alone in the world and
unprotected, but you see what I've brought her to. I had hopes then-- I
have none now. Things never take an upward turn for some men, Cavanaugh.
They head downward, and they pull everything they touch with them. They
marry wives and make them suffer. They bring children into the world to
suffer, and they go on that way till the earth receives their useless
remains, and that is the end of their dreams.'
"I tried to cheer him up, but I couldn't. I wish, John, that I could
tell you about his unselfishness as to one thing in particular, but I
reckon I'd better not. It would do no good. I see from your looks that
all this is going hard with you."
"No, nothing is to be gained by it, Sam," John said, shrugging his
shoulders. He looked at his watch. "You must go to lunch with me," he
said. "I want to see as much of you as possible while you are here."
"I am agreeable," Cavanaugh said, with a touch of his former ease of
manner. "It seems like old times once more, my boy."
* * * * *
They lunched together and afterward went to the small hotel where
Cavanaugh was staying, got the old man's valise, and went to John's
home. Cavanaugh was put into Dora's old room and given to understand
that it was his as long as he remained in the city. For a week the two
friends were constantly together. John took the time off from business,
and, with Binks trotting between them, the physically ill-mated and yet
mentally congenial pair took long walks together. And not since Dora's
departure had John felt so soothed and comforted. A spiritual force of
some sort seemed to radiate from the bent old man that for the time
almost regenerated his companion. John had discovered that Cavanaugh
loved him as a son and regarded him with an ardent mixture of pride and
ecstasy, as a son restored from death to life. Sometimes, in their
ascent of an incline in their strolls, the old man would quite
unconsciously catch hold of the arm of the younger, and in speaking he
often held John's hand in one of his and gently stroked it, as if
unconscious of what he was doing. At times, for no particular reason, he
would lower his voice into an almost confidential whisper. However, it
was on the last night of his stay, before his departure the following
morning, that John was permitted to see even more deeply into
Cavanaugh's heart. They were in Dora's room. The old man was undressing
for bed when suddenly he sat down, locked his toil-hardened fingers
between his knees, and lowered his shaggy head, as if buffeting an
unexpected wave of despair.
"I want to tell you something, John," he said, in a shaky voice. "And I
don't want you to forget it as long as life stays in you. I want you to
know that no days in all my existence have been as happy as these with
you. Not even my honeymoon, John, and that is saying a lot. I can't tell
you about it. When I try my tongue fails, my throat fills, and my eyes
stream with tears. You'll never regret being so good to me. God won't
give you cause to ever regret it. What is ahead of me seems mighty
short. I'll be dead, I guess, too soon for me to ever think about coming
to New York again, and I know how you feel about going down there, but
I'll take a sweet memory to my grave with me, John, and that is that
you, with all your up-to-date success and education, treated me as sweet
and gentle as a dutiful son would an old, unpolished, plain father that
he loved and respected. You are lonely and unhappy, and I see no way to
help you. That hurts. That hurts deep down in me! I hate to go away and
leave you like this, never to see you again. What I told you
about--about the little woman that was once your wife struck you a
deadly blow between the eyes. You thought you had counted on her
marrying again, but I reckon, after all, you hadn't really done that. I
see--I understand. You have been all these years holding her in your
heart, somehow, as yours in spirit if not in body, and now for the
first time you are trying to look the facts in the face. I've noticed
that you don't sleep sound. I hear you stirring about in the night."
John made no denial, and the fact that he did not do so proved to
Cavanaugh that what he had said was true.
John rose and started to his own room. "I'll have you up in time for
your train," he said. "Get a good sleep. You will need it before
starting on a long journey like yours. Good night."
"Good night, my boy, good night," Cavanaugh said.
From his own room, where John sat smoking in the dark, he saw the light
go out in Cavanaugh's room. He listened, expecting to hear the bed creak
as it always did when the old man got upon it, but now there was no
sound. There was silence for nearly half an hour, and then the telltale
creaking came. John understood. Had he had a watch and a light, he
could, to a second, have timed one of the saddest and most unselfish of
prayers.
"Poor, dear old Sam!" he muttered, and began to undress for bed.
CHAPTER V
After Cavanaugh's departure the time hung heavy over John. He seldom
heard from Dora, and, as business happened to be rather quiet, he really
was too inactive for one of his introspective temperament. When not at
work he spent the time altogether in the company of Binks, who seemed to
have become actually human in his fidelity and affection.
One day, having to inspect a finished building on Washington Heights,
not far from Dyckman Street, he took the dog along. And when the work
was over he and Binks strolled down to the Hudson and walked along the
shore. It was a warm day, and men, women, and children were fishing and
bathing in the clear water.
Presently a spot was reached that looked inviting, and John decided to
eat the lunch there that he had brought along. So, seating himself on a
water-worn boulder, he opened his parcel and fed Binks as he himself
ate.
Across the river in a bluish haze towered the Palisades, and on either
side of him in the distance jutted out from the shore he was on long,
slender, gray and yellow boat-houses with their pile-anchored floats. On
his right at the water's edge was a group of Italians, picnicking
together. There were the four heads of two families, stocky
laboring-men, fat housewives, and young girls and boys. They had made a
fire of driftwood on the rocks, and John could see a great pot of
something stewing, and smelled the aroma of coffee and broiled
sausages. The boys and girls had put on foreign-looking bathing-suits
and, with tiny water-wings under their arms, were splashing about,
trying to learn to swim.
"Binks, old chap," John said, aloud, as had become a habit of his,
"there are some deep holes where those silly people are. Those kids may
get beyond their depth. I hope the men can swim."
The Italians had a guitar. Some one played it, and native songs were
sung. They were very happy. John told himself that it might be some sort
of reunion of close friends or relatives. There were so many shouts of
merriment in Italian, loud commands to the children from their mothers,
and joyous retorts from the bathers, that John failed to hear a shrill
cry of alarm from their midst. It was Binks, indeed, who suddenly
pricked up his ears, barked, and began to run toward the picnickers. At
first, absorbed in reflection, John paid no attention to the dog's
antics, but, as Binks continued to bark excitedly, he stood up and
looked toward the bathers. The children now ashore were screaming, women
were shouting, waving their hands, and with their clothing on the two
men were wading out into the water which from the passage of a great
steamer was rolling like the surf of an ocean. That the men could not
swim John saw at once, and he ran down the shore toward them.
"For God's sake, meester, save her! save my daughter!" a man screamed.
"Me no swim! Dere, dere!" and he pointed to a pair of water-wings
floating in a circle of bubbles thirty feet from the rocks.
John was a good swimmer, and, throwing off his coat, he plunged in at
once, but Binks, who had been taught to spring into water and fetch back
such things as sticks or a ball thrown in, and had sighted the
water-wings, was several yards ahead of him.
"Dere, dere! My God! she's up de third time!" shrieked the girl's
father. "Catch her, meester, catch her! It's de last time--de last
time!"
On a curling swell John saw the girl's head and shoulders above the
water. She was going down again, and a great rolling wave was close upon
her. John saw that he could not reach her in time, and he saw something
else that filled him with horror. Binks, with the captured water-wings
in his mouth, was within the girl's reach, and she grasped him and
dragged him under. There was a gurgling struggle, widening rings filled
with bubbles floated on the swaying water, and nothing was seen of the
girl or the dog.
A wail of despair rang out from the shore; men, women, and children ran
to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and
dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived
down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in
the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the
blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew.
The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished,
and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the
shore were louder than ever.
"Again! again! meester!" the father yelled, "farther up. O God! O God!"
Again John dived. This time he went quite to the bottom and crawled
along from rock to rock, keeping himself down by the clutch of his
hands. But to no avail. He saw nothing and was fairly bursting for lack
of breath. The progress upward seemed endless, and when the surface was
reached he was almost dead from exhaustion. But he dived again and
again. Binks was drowning, he kept thinking, and there was little else
in his mind. When he had dived unsuccessfully a dozen times a man
arrived in a rowboat from one of the boat-houses with a rope and
grappling-irons. Taking John into the boat, the two began to drag the
river over the fatal spot. The man held the oars and John the rope.
"She's been under fifteen minutes," the boatman said. "There is little
chance now, even if we get her up. My God! what fools those greasers
are! Eating, drinking, and singing while their kid was going down!"
John had time to observe the group on the shore now. The mother of the
girl had fainted, and the other woman was fanning her as she lay on the
rocks, unsheltered from the sun. The children, in their wet suits, stood
crying lustily.
"We can't do anything now," the boatman said when another five minutes
had passed. "She is done for, but we'd as well keep on the job to
satisfy 'em. The tow has taken her out, most likely."
Ten minutes more. Even the group on the shore seemed to have given up
hope. However, the irons caught. It might be a rock, John thought, but
the object yielded gently. "Hold! Not so hard!" John ordered. "You might
pull it loose. I've caught something!"
Carefully he drew in the rope. He saw the blue dress through several
feet of water, and, reaching down, he caught it with his hand. A moment
later and the drowned girl, with Binks clutched in her death-grip, was
drawn into the boat.
A scream of joy from the reviving mother of the girl rent the air.
Having been unconscious of the passage of time, she evidently thought
her child might yet be alive. As the boatman gently pulled toward the
rocks, John disengaged Binks from the stiff fingers, and held him in his
lap.
"Poor mut!" the boatman said. "She choked the life out of him. They are
always like that--they will grab at a floating chip. Turn the girl's
head down, will you, and let the water run out? There may be a speck of
life left, but I think she is as dead as a mackerel."
Putting Binks aside, John obeyed. The girl's face was purple, her lips
foaming. The rocks reached, the two Italian men, their yellow faces
stamped with agony, were ready up to their waists in water to take the
girl ashore.
John knew nothing about what is called "first aid to the drowning," and
so, with his dead pet in his arms, he climbed up the rocks. Men were
gathering from the two boat-houses. He heard somebody say, "There is a
cop and a doctor!" The screaming women, the sobbing children, the awed
questions of spectators just arrived, fell on closed ears, as far as
John was concerned. Picking up his coat, he wrapped it about Binks and
bore him homeward. Looking back, he saw the doctor examining the body on
the rocks. John sat down alone in the sun. He told himself that he would
let his clothing dry on him as he walked homeward. But what was to be
done about the body of his pet? He couldn't take it home with him, and
he knew of no burial-ground for dogs. He sat down on the shore to think
it out. His mind was in a queer jumble of resentment and resigned
despair. How could Binks actually be dead? How could he go home without
him? And yet the wet, limp object with the bulging, glazed eyes and
distorted muzzle was all that was left of the loving, vivacious animal
to which he had been so warmly linked.
The doctor was coming back. He passed John, and then paused. "Is that
the dog she drowned?" he asked, bending down sympathetically and
stroking the animal's coat.
"Yes. How is the girl?" John asked.
"Dead," was the answer, and the doctor stood erect and walked away.
For several hours John remained on the shore. He saw the Italians
bearing the girl's body away, followed by the women and children. Then a
thought came to him. There was a dense strip of sloping wooded land
between the river and the nearest street, and in the midst of it stood a
tall oak. At the foot of this tree he would bury Binks's remains. The
oak would be a landmark that he could easily single out again. He found
some newspapers, and, wrapping up the body in them, he dug a grave and
put his pet into it.
The sun was going down above the New Jersey cliffs when the rite was
ended. The great disk was as red as living coals of fire. A tree with
shooting branches and stark trunk three miles away was clearly outlined
across its face. A big excursion-steamer bound for Albany was passing.
The surface of the river was sprinkled with sail-boats and varicolored
canoes. From somewhere on the water came the clear, joyous tones of a
cornet. Some player was putting his soul into his music. John walked
down to one of the boat-houses. Men were fishing from the float. At a
crude bar he bought a cigar and lighted it. He asked about the fishing
of one of the fishermen and apathetically listened while the man talked
of rods, reels, lines, sinkers, and bait. John did not want to go home.
The thought of the hot, close, and lonely house, in his present frame of
mind, was repellent. He wondered if he was giving way to sickly
sentimentality, for he had a desire to pass that night in the wood in
solitary vigil over the grave of his loved companion.
Presently he shrugged his shoulders and started homeward. "Be a man,
John Trott!" he said, with closed lips. "Why shouldn't Binks
die?--everybody has to die sooner or later. What does it matter? The
only thing that matters is to bear your burden like a soldier and a
man."
CHAPTER VI
Dear John [so ran the first letter from Cavanaugh after the
latter returned to Ridgeville]--I hardly know how to begin
this letter. Since I got home I declare everything here
seems awfully tame. That was a wonderful visit I had as I
look back on it. I wish it could have gone on forever. I am
glad I saw you, for a lot of reasons. You were lonely and
blue, my boy. Even your partner spoke to me about you. He
said since Dora left that you was really in danger of a
nervous breakdown. Mrs. McGwire and her oldest girl said the
same thing. They were all worried about you, and so am I.
I've got a confession to make, and the sooner it is made the
better I'll feel. John, you know how a town like this one
is. The folks here love to gossip about anything they can
pick up, and I'm going to tell you that when it got
circulated among some of your old work friends that I'd gone
to New York a few of them began to nose about and make
inquiries. They thought it was such a peculiar thing, you
see, for a man of my age and habits to do that they kept
talking and talking and joking and what not. Then, as might
have been expected, Todd Williams, who you remember thought
he saw you on the train in New York, put his finger into the
pie. He told it about that he was now more sure than ever
that it was you he saw on the train and that I had gone up
there to see you. That did the job, and I don't know what to
do about it. Folks meet me on the street and ask about you
as if it was a settled fact that you never died in that
wreck, and, with their eyes staring straight into mine, I
don't know what to do or say. John, I don't know how to lie
with a sober face. The more I shifted about and tried to get
out of it the more they believed it, till now, no matter
what I say, they only laugh and make fun and say that I'm
keeping something back. So please tell me what to do. The
truth is that the facts, if they get out, will never harm
you in any way. It is now so long since you left that only a
very few that used to know you are alive or here. The fever
for going West struck most of your old friends and they
moved away. I really think that I'd advise you not to keep
the truth back any longer. Questions are asked about what
came of Dora, and if I say that she is married and gone away
it will end all sorts of idle speculations.
If I've got you into a fix in this matter please forgive me,
for it all came about through no intention of mine. If I
could lie as straight as some contractors can beat down the
price of material or wages, I'd have got you out of this,
but I'm getting old and I'm like a baby in the hands of
these mouthing, tattling folks. Oh, how I wish you could
come down here! You'd not feel as bad about all that has
happened if you'd come down and visit me and my wife, and
throw it off like an old worn-out coat. What a joy it would
be to give you a room and see you seated at our humble
board! Think it over, my boy. Life is short at best, and we
ought to spend part of it with the folks that really love
us, and we love you, John--both of us do.
John sat down in his room one night to answer this letter, but, though
he tried very hard, he could think of little to say. Cavanaugh's simple
phrases had sounded his deepest emotional depths, and yet he could not
bring himself to write an appropriate response. He started to mention
the death of Binks, but gave that up. That, he argued, would only cause
his old friend to be the more deeply concerned over his welfare. So he
wrote the most cheerful letter of which he was capable, about his
activity in business matters, and his ability to look on the bright side
of such things as the absence of Dora and his unmarried state. He ended
the letter with this:
Yes, I fully agree with you in regard to a frank and
truthful statement about my being alive, etc. I understand
the situation and don't blame you at all. Tell every one who
cares to inquire that the newspaper report was a mistake and
that you saw me while you were here. I want to see you and
your wife as badly as you want to see me, but I'm afraid I
cannot come down, now, at any rate.
CHAPTER VII
Joel Eperson sat on his small one-horse wagon, which was loaded with
fire-wood. He was taking the wood to Cavanaugh's from the small farm he
was renting two miles from Ridgeville. Joel had aged remarkably. Young
as he was, his thin hair and beard were becoming gray, and his sallow
face was seamed with lines of worry and care. His clothing was of the
cheapest material and threadbare, and yet faultlessly clean. As he got
down at the front gate Cavanaugh and his wife, who were seated under an
apple-tree at the side of the house, came around to meet him.
"Here is the wood you wanted," Joel said, removing his hat in quite his
old chivalrous way. "You said dry oak, and I found plenty on the hill
back of my corn-field."
"And mighty nigh killed yourself cutting it in lengths and splitting
it," Cavanaugh said. "Dry oak is a hard proposition for anything but a
sawmill. What do you want for this load?"
"A dollar is what I usually get," Joel answered, sensitive as he always
was when dealing with friends.
"Humph!" Cavanaugh sniffed, and looked at his wife. "This load is twice
as big as any dollar load I ever bought, and will throw out twice as
much heat to the square inch. I'll tell you, Joel, I've got a two-dollar
bill that is burning a hole in my pocket, and it goes for this load of
wood or you have me to whip. We are out of stove-wood, too, and I don't
want any dickering from you about it."
Joel flushed under his tattered straw hat. "It isn't worth that much,"
he declared, tapping the ground with his whip.
"It is worth it to me, Joel," Cavanaugh smiled, "so what can you do
about it? I won't take double value from any man, much less you. How is
Tilly?"
"She is fairly well, thank you," the farmer replied.
"And the little ones?" Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, with a motherly smile.
"They are both all right, thank you," Joel said, his undecided glance on
his wood. Then, to his surprise, the contractor came through the gate,
took the reins from his hands, and drove the horse with its load around
to the gate at the side of the house. Halting there, Cavanaugh began to
throw the wood over the fence.
"Let him have his way, Joel," Mrs. Cavanaugh said, smiling. "He'd be
miserable if he got anything too cheap from an old friend like you.
Before you start home, come in; I've made two little waists for the
children from a pattern Tilly lent me the last time she was in. I hope
they will fit."
"You are always doing things like that, and yet want me to take double
price for my produce," Joel said, frowning. "Something is wrong
somewhere, Mrs. Cavanaugh."
The old woman laughed lightly. "Go help Sam throw off the wood, Joel,"
she said. "Don't tell me I haven't the right to sew for little children
when I have none of my own. I love your two, and what I do for them has
nothing to do with you."
With a look of blended pleasure and pain, Joel joined Cavanaugh, and
together they unloaded the wagon. When it was empty Joel shook the bits
of bark and chips from the plank flooring, and stared at the contractor
timidly. "There is a matter I want to ask you about, Mr. Cavanaugh," he
began, clearing his throat. "It is a serious thing for me, and my wife,
too. I've wanted to mention it for several days--in fact, since I first
heard of it. I really don't know whether I have the right to ask you,
and if I haven't you must stop me. Mr. Cavanaugh, all sorts of stories
have been floating about to the effect that--that my wife's--that John
Trott's reported death was a mistake, and that--and that you went up to
New York to--"
Joel broke off. He was quite agitated.
"I know what you mean," Cavanaugh put into the break. "How did you hear
it?"
"My neighbors are all talking about it," said Eperson, laboriously, his
face now grim and fixed. "I went to Todd Williams and asked him about
it. All he could tell me was that he saw a man in New York that looked
like John Trott, but he said it might have been only a fancy. Of course,
I've kept the talk from Tilly as much as possible. I asked our neighbors
not to mention it to her and they promised, but--but--"
"You think she has heard it?" Cavanaugh submitted, gravely.
Eperson nodded. A grim expression twisted his lips awry and left them
quivering as he spoke. "Yes, I think some part of it, at least, has
reached her. I saw a change in her last night when she came back from a
visit to the Creswells. She didn't mention it to me, but I was watching
her and I saw a change. She was excited. I think I might call it
excitement, Mr. Cavanaugh, and she didn't sleep well last night. She got
up several times, and it seemed to me once that she was about to speak
to me about it, but still she didn't."
"I see, I see," said Cavanaugh, slowly. "Well, Joel, I hardly know what
is right to do in a matter as delicate as this is, but still right is
right, and if there is anybody in the world that ought to know the truth
about this, why, it is you and Tilly. Joel, the truth is, John Trott and
Dora are both still alive."
"Then, then, _it is true_?"
"Yes, Joel; I've just had a letter from John and he wants the facts
known. But I don't see that there is any reason for you to be disturbed.
You see, the law parted John and Tilly years ago, and even if it hadn't,
his long desertion (we'll call it that) would have amounted to the same
in any court."
Like an automaton which all but creaked in its joints, Joel took up his
reins. Tapping his thin horse with his whip and making a clucking sound
between his teeth, he turned his wagon around.
"Wait! You haven't been paid yet," Cavanaugh cried, holding out a bill.
Pausing, a flurried, far-away look in his eyes, Joel took the money.
"Thank you--thank you," he ejaculated. "So there's no doubt about it?
Did you actually see him, Mr. Cavanaugh--with your own eyes, I mean? I
don't want any hearsay or second-hand report. I want the truth--the
facts."
"I spent a week with him, Joel."
Eperson wound the lines around his left hand and brought his desperate
eyes back to Cavanaugh's face. "There is one thing more," he gulped, his
hand at his throat. "Is he--is John Trott a--a married man?"
"No, Joel; he's single. Marrying didn't seem to be--well, exactly in his
line. His time has been taken up with a growing business, his books, a
pet dog, and Dora. She was like a loving sister, I understand, till she
married a man she loved and moved out of the country. John is a sort
of--well, you might say a sort of stay-at-home, soured old bachelor that
never took much to women. At least that's the way I size him up. He
makes plenty of money, and has laid up some, but I don't think he cares
much for it. He's odd--a sort of deep-feeling fellow--different from the
general run of men."
In a nervous sort of movement Joel wiped his lips with his hand.
"There is a thing I'd like to know," he said, slowly, impressively,
frankly. "You say he is single, and that makes me wonder. Mr. Cavanaugh,
truth is truth, and, as you say, right is right; would you mind telling
me whether you think he has--has changed--well, in regard to his--his
feeling toward Tilly?"
"You are asking me a ticklish question," Cavanaugh said, with a start
and a dropping of his honest eyes. "You see, John never came right out
and talked plain on that line, and--"
"I was only asking for your _personal_ opinion," emphasized Joel; "in
talking with him did you gather that--that his sentiments had undergone
no change since he left here?"
"I don't see what good it will do," the old man said, "but since you
insist on knowing I may as well admit that I didn't see any change. In
my opinion, Joel, he loves her even more than he did. He didn't say so,
you understand, but that's what I gathered. I was watching him when I
told him about you and her getting married, and I must say I pitied him.
I don't know why, but I did. He looked so downcast, and, you might say,
almost astonished."
With the groping movement of a man in the dark, Eperson started to get
into his wagon, but was stopped by Mrs. Cavanaugh.
"Wait, Joel!" she called out. "You are forgetting these things," and she
brought them to him wrapped up in paper. "Give Tilly my love and tell
her if the waists don't fit I can take them in or let them out."
"Thank you; you are very, very, kind." Joel had lifted his hat, and,
with a hand that seemed bloodless, he took the parcel and put it into
his wagon, carefully covering it with his coat. He made no effort toward
starting on again, and, as there was an opening for it, Cavanaugh said
to his wife:
"I've just been telling him about John, and it seems to me that Joel is
sorter worried about--about its effect on Tilly."
Eperson nodded as if acquiescing to a statement too delicate to be
discussed, and remained silent, a wilted look of despair on him.
"I see, I see," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "I was wondering how she would take
it. She's never been exactly like other women. Few women would
have--have, you know what I mean, Joel--would have acted like she has
all along in regard to John's mother. I must say, and I know that you
will agree with me, that she showed herself to be a wonderfully good
Christian woman. Why, sometimes it looked to me like she loved Mrs.
Trott more than she did even her own mother. But she's been
rewarded--oh, you know she's been gloriously rewarded! Your sweet little
wife, Joel, has saved the very soul and body of a lone, lost woman. But
you helped--oh yes! if it hadn't been for you she never could have done
it. And you deserve your reward, too. In my opinion you have been a man
amongst a million in all you have done in that matter."
"I don't deserve your praise, Mrs. Cavanaugh," Eperson sighed. "I did it
all for Tilly. She was unhappy till we began to help Mrs. Trott. I saw
where the trouble lay, and did a little, that's all."
"And are you worried about how Tilly will take the news about John?"
Mrs. Cavanaugh asked, while her husband hung open-mouthed on Eperson's
answer.
"I don't know how exactly to make you understand the--the situation,"
Joel stammered. "But I reckon I may as well say, and be done with it,
that--that--" He went no farther, his words piling one upon another on
his helpless tongue, his great, tender eyes bulging from their
dark-ringed sockets.
"You can't mean that she would be worried about the divorce." Mrs.
Cavanaugh feebly came to his assistance. "Sam and I were talking that
over. There is no doubt that it was legal in every way. Old Whaley saw
to that. Narrow-minded and hard as he was, he acted for the best in that
case."
"I see you don't understand." Joel dug the toe of his coarse shoe into a
tuft of grass and mechanically pounded it with his heel. "You don't
understand, because you don't know Tilly as well as I do. Mrs.
Cavanaugh, how can I put it any better than to--to say that--no matter
what was done in court, no matter what John Trott did that might be
called 'desertion,' Tilly would never have married again if she had
thought he was alive. I'd never have dared to ask her to marry me if I
hadn't thought he was dead. I believed it--from the bottom of my soul I
believed it, and--and, my friends, listen! I got her to believe it. I
saw that she doubted it a little, and I worked and worked, and argued
and argued, till finally I got her to believe it. But even then I'd have
failed if Mrs. Trott hadn't--hadn't helped me. Mrs. Trott believed he
was dead, and it was her belief and my talk that finally convinced
Tilly. But now what is to be done?"
"Why, nothing that I can see," Mrs. Cavanaugh answered. "All you have to
do is to show Tilly that in no sense of the word is she bound by her
first marriage. You seem to think she is worried over that."
Joel shrugged his shoulders and took a deep breath. "You don't
understand yet," he said, with a low groan. "She is excited--so excited
that she can't sleep, but it is not the kind of excitement you think it
is. She's heard the report that John Trott is still alive and she is
afraid that it may not--by some chance--be true. I don't mean that she'd
ever live with him again--now that she is--is a mother, or that she'd
hold it against me for marrying her as I did; but to know that no harm
came to him will make her happier than she's been for many a day. That
is a thing I've got to face. She is the mother of my children, but she
has never given me her whole heart and soul. She gave them to John
Trott. She has never blamed him for any step he took. She thought that
he left here for her sake, _and died for her sake_. Do you think I don't
know that when she hears that he himself has never married in all these
years--do you think that she will then love him less than she did? She
always looked on him as the most wronged man alive. Do you suppose that
she herself will turn against him now? In the name of God, what excuse
would she have, and him still loving her as Mr. Cavanaugh thinks he
does?"
"I never looked at it that way," Mrs. Cavanaugh said. "You are getting
me all mixed up. Does Mrs. Trott-- Have any of the reports got to her?"
"No, not yet; but Tilly will want to tell her, now that there is no
doubt as to the truth. I must tell my wife what I have just learned. It
is my duty to tell her. Yes, yes, I must tell her. I'm honor-bound at
once to give her all the joy in my power."
It was as if both Cavanaugh and his wife could think of nothing in the
way of comfort for Eperson, and, taking his reins into a better grasp
and touching his hat politely, he mounted his wagon and drove away.
CHAPTER VIII
The loose planks on Joel's wagon rattled over the rain-washed and
little-used road running from the main highway to the farm he was
renting. The house was a log cabin of only three rooms, situated on a
bleak, treeless hillside. Adjoining it was a diminutive corn-crib made
of pine poles with the bark still on them, and a lean-to shed which was
roofed with long shingles sawn and split from red oak.
As he drove his clattering wagon up the slope his two children, little
Joel and Tilly, ran out to meet him. The boy held his sister's hand to
keep her from falling, and was gleefully shouting to his father to stop
and take them into the wagon. Eperson checked his horse and got down and
made places for them on his coat.
"Where's your mother?" he inquired, his dull eyes on the cabin.
"In the house," answered little Joel. "Supper is nearly ready."
"Hold your sister," Eperson ordered, as he started the horse and walked
along by the wagon; "she might fall."
Tilly came to the front door and stood watching them as they drew
nearer. The sun was going down, and its last slanting rays made a living
picture of her in the crude frame of logs. She looked older than the
average woman of her age, and yet there was a rounded mellowness to her
features, a suave, spiritual radiance from her skin, eyes, and hair,
which always caught and held the attention of an observer. The same
quality seemed to pervade her voice. It had always been musical; it was
even more so now. Her husband saw that she was all aglow and smiling as
she stepped down to the wagon and held out her arms for the little girl.
"Not a long ride, was it, pet?" she said, as the child put its arms
around her neck and kissed her cheek.
Taking up the parcel, Joel handed it to his wife. "Mrs. Cavanaugh sent
it," he explained. "It is the waists."
"Mrs. Cavanaugh?" Tilly said, in groping surprise. "Where did you see
her?"
"I sold Cavanaugh the wood." Joel felt the heat flow into his cheeks.
"He ordered it a week ago."
"Was he--was he at home?" Tilly held the child's face to hers, and Joel
noted a tense ripple of expectation in her voice.
"Yes, he was there." Joel lowered his head to take up the reins he had
dropped, preparatory to driving around to the wagon-shed. From the
corner of his eyes he saw that Tilly stood rigid at his side, and he
thought he knew why she lingered thus. He was starting his horse, when
she said, suddenly:
"Well, come right in. Your supper is ready."
As he put his horse into its stall and fed it with fodder and corn, he
almost wished that he could prolong the task, for how was he to pass
through the coming ordeal, which was like death to him?
He went into the house, bathed his face in a pan of water, brushed his
long thin hair, carefully adjusted his collar, and put on his coat. As a
rule, farmers did not wear their coats in the house in warm weather, but
Joel had never sat at the table with his wife without having his on. It
was an observance of respect to women which had been handed down to
Joel from conventional forebears, and from which he could not have
departed.
Tilly and the children were at the table. It had grown dark within the
almost windowless cabin, and an oil-lamp furnished the light, the yellow
rays of which fell over the food, which consisted of boiled vegetables,
cornbread, butter, and mush and milk for the children.
Out of respect to Tilly, who always did it in his absence, Joel, when at
home, said grace at the table, and the upturned plates to-night mutely
reminded him of that duty.
It had always been the same simple formula which, also, had descended to
Joel, and over his folded hands to-night he uttered it. Moistening his
dry lips as if to render them pliant, Eperson sent his prayer out into
the sentient mystery which was so relentlessly wrapping him about.
"Loving Father," he prayed, "we thank Thee, this night, for all the
evidence of Thy loving tenderness and care. Bless this food to our
needs. Render us kind and merciful to our neighbors, and, when our
earthly service to Thee is ended, receive us into the grace and peace of
Thy eternal kingdom. Amen."